Trail of Giggles
by LadyRavena
Summary: The Tardis had made it quite clear on her screen, with all the read-outs, & he had read them out loud & still, still he was poking her. Bored Time Lords are unpredictable.


Trail of Giggles

Characters: 10th, Rose, Tardis

Rating: General

Set: Some random time before Rose leaves.

Spoilers: Minor spoilers for "The Doctor's Wife" (Series 6) with 11, but not major ones, and for the movie, "Lilo and Stitch".

AN: Thanks for the idea, shadowsong_13, and it's for the prompt restless.

* * *

><p>She had made it quite clear on her screen, with all the read-outs, and he had read them out loud and still, still he was poking her. Seeing if she was done, seeing if the couplings needed realigning, seeing if he could make himself into the biggest, oldest pest she had ever flown with. She loved her stolen Time Lord, but he could and was being a pain in the router right now. So, when he had wandered off to find a cup of tea and a banana, she had quietly locked him out of the control room, the auxiliary control room, the back-up rooms, the archived control rooms, and the blue laundry room, which held the only other entrance via a service duct that, admittedly, would be a tight squeeze, but he was being that big a pest.<p>

She needed a good couple of days to finish realigning the axis, and to finish refuelling on the Rift energy she had found on this planet. It was inhospitable, it was barren, it had nothing for her Doctor and Rose to do, and she was staying put until she was done.

No matter how bored he got.

Rose settled more comfortably in the armchair in the library, studiously ignoring the grumbling of her Time Lord. She was determined to finish this chapter, and his grumbles would not deter her from it.

Finally, she looked up at his sulking face. "You knew she needed a while, Doctor," she scolded. "You told me so yourself. Needed a couple of days, better find somethin' to do. She won't move until she's all good and ready, you said, dincha?"

"Yes, but—''

Rose sighed. "Well, then, you better find something to amuse yourself with, shouldn't ya?" She had already played babysitter once today, with the running list of questions, and she wasn't going to go through them again. Do you want to watch something? _No._ Do you want to read something? _No. _Do you want to do something? _No. _Do you want to cook/eat something? _No. _Do you want to putter with something that needs fixing? That last one had made him leave the room, grumbling in his own language.

So, no, Rose was done playing twenty questions.

The Doctor sulked for a little while longer, staring into the fire in the grate. The Tardis had done her best to lead him to this room, but he really didn't feel like doing anything in here. Nothing productive, at any rate, he thought to himself. Making a tower of books and novels sounded like fun, but he wouldn't want to put them all back on the shelf afterwards, and really, he'd be too tempted to go all Stitch and recreate San Francisco and ruin it all by playing King Kong, knocking everything down –

Giggling suddenly, the Doctor leapt from the chair and raced out of the room, leaving a startled Rose to wonder just what the Doctor had thought of to do. She decided, after a moment, that she didn't want to know.

* * *

><p>Seven hours later, Rose went wandering for her Doctor. He'd skipped tea, and she had a feeling that he'd lost track of time yet again. For a Time Lord, he was remarkably absentminded when it came to keeping track of things. The slow path, as Reinette had called it, seemed to confuse him so much.<p>

It took her less time to find him than she thought; all she had to do was stop and listen for his hysterical giggles. It would be quiet, and then the giggles would start up, like he was high on something. That was a scary idea, she thought, remembering his regeneration gone so horribly wrong. This sounded more happy energy, less nervous energy.

She finally found him in a massive room filled with benches, tables, boxes, and various pieces of furniture all over the place, like he'd wandered into an abandoned storage room. Everything was covered in little black and white tiles, she saw, all standing upright close together, all in little lines and swirls, with the Doctor in the middle of the room, in one cleared off area, surrounded by the tiles circling outwards to meander all over the room.

"Whatcha doin', Doctor?" she asked, bewildered.

"Dominoes!"

Rose moved forward a step into the room.

"No, stay put!" The Doctor was shaking with his attempt at not giggling. His face nearly hurt from the huge grin he was wearing, and his eyes practically glowed from his mirth. "You've never played with dominoes?"

"No, can't say I have."

The Doctor tsked. "Whatever did Jackie do with you on games night? Dominoes, Tiles, Bones, however you call them, are a great game, and you used to be able to gamble on them too, but that was a long time ago, nobody plays with them anymore! But, if you had a really good set, with nice flat edges and even finishes, you could, if you were clever and had steady hands, and I have both, well, both my hands are steady, although the right one is a little bit iffy sometimes, just have to stretch it, you could balance them all on their edges and make this!"

"Like a house of cards, yeah?"

The Doctor shook his head back and forth. "No, well, kind of, well, no, well, never mind, because this is more fun! Because, Rose Tyler, when you've spent 6 hours building this one long trail of dominoes all over a room, up and down boxes and branches all over the place, with several dozen sets, didn't realize I had 16 boxes of the things, could have sworn I only had 12, then, if you do it just right, you can do this!" With one finger, he reached out to the start of the line right in front of his crossed legs and poked it.

Slowly, the tile shook back and forth, until finally it fell towards the next tile in the line. It fell quicker onto the next tile, and the next tile, until all the tiles were suddenly making a continuous clicking noise, the falling tiles were splitting down the paths, converging again, speeding up, and running all the way around the room, and Rose's laughter was mixing with the Doctor's giggles as every single tile in the room fell to one mighty poke.


End file.
